CreatingSawdust.com » Woodworking

Distressing Painted Furniture

Dave — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:54:37 +0000

How do you make distressed furniture?

That is one of most asked questions I get after I’ve made a painted piece of furniture. So I thought I’d share how I do that.

First off let me say the projects I make are typically not beat up. I really do not believe that after going through all the time & effort to build the thing that I should then be beating the hell out of it!

Now if in the building process I find I mistakenly cut a piece too short or did something stupid that can’t be fixed… well then its game on! (But at this stage I’m taking no survivors. I’m making firewood!)

Anyway, back to my method…

Once I have completed the woodworking part of the piece I go ahead & stain the entire piece. Let that dry & then spray a few coats of shellac to seal it.

From here, I tape off or take off the part that isn’t getting painted & go through the finishing of it how I normally would.

Once I have that part completed I turn my attention to the paint.

While I’m mixing the acrylic paint (I use Olde Century Colors paint) I map out in my mind how I’m going to paint the piece in sections.

For example in the bench project I just did I painted it in this order:

the support rails
one end
then the other end

Once I’ve completed a section & it’s almost dry I take a soaking wet (but not dripping) wash cloth & wipe the paint away where I think it might wear & tear. Then I wipe away a few spots just to give it a little more effect.

From here I rinse out the wash cloth & I move on to the next section & repeat the process until the entire piece is completed.

After completely drying I look at where I’ve exposed the stained parts & see if I might have gone overboard. If I have I simply repaint that part of that section.

When I’m satisfied with what I see I reassemble the project & put it to use.

And that’s how I go about making a distressed painted project. I know there are a lot of other ways to do this but let’s face it I’m lazy & this method is simple.

I mean it did take me 7 years to build the piece!

Slowly but surely!

Dave — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:04:05 +0000

Recently I was told that on May 24th of 2004 that I finished building the following Shaker inspired table.

Now I didn’t believe that but I was also told how I quickly took photos of the table & sent them to Woodcentral.com to be posted.

So I told my wife how she was surely nuts! There was no way I build this table that long ago. I mean come on! After all I was the one who build the table! (BTW, after searching I found out that I was of course WRONG!)

The next question that came up was when I thought I might get around to building anything that resembles a seat for it.

Now in my defense that hasn’t been 100% my fault. We could never answer questions on do we buy or build or what style would chairs would look good and this time was no different. We couldn’t even agree to disagree.

So one day while I was out I got a phone call pleading with me to at least build two benches so we could at least use the table.

Once I got home I mocked up a shaker style bench. We went through the design making changes & talking about how to finish it.

I then told her how I could have them done in start to finish within the week. (That was 2 months ago!)

Well never to be one they could call slow, I finally got started on building them. Here’s the progress so far.

Now my question is this: “Can I pawn this off as a anniversary present?” Now I’m joking I assure you! (But hypothetically, what if I wasn’t?!?)

Using H Hinges

Dave — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:23:33 +0000

Today while at lunch I was busy trying to sketch a project that I was designing as a tall laundry room cupboard for my house when a fellow co-worker/woodworker stopped to take a look.

While we were talking about the piece, why I was designing it and what it would be used for, he made a comment that my project had a flush mounted door. He then went on to tell me how he hated flush mounted doors because you have to chisel out the wood while installing the hinges. He finished by telling me that the time wasn’t worth the effort in his eyes.

At that point I just kind of smiled and said I don’t do any of that.

At first he gave a quizitive look of “huh?” and then after a few seconds of letting what I said sink in, he said “please don’t tell me you just flush mount the butt hinges?”

That’s when I opened up my web browser and introduced him to “H” hinges.

Part of a Thomas Jefferson reproduction

Click here to read the rest of the article at Horton Brasses.

Hardware Comparison

Dave — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:25:33 +0000

Recently I received my December issue of Popular Woodworking magazine. While looking at it during lunch, one of my woodworking co-workers stopped to look at Glen Huey’s Line & Berry Chest of Drawers that graced the cover.

Photo provided by PopularWoodworking.com

After thumbing through the article he smiled & said it must be nice! Puzzled I took the bait & asked, “What do you mean?”

That sparked a discussion about why one should use/buy quality lumber & hardware on projects & then suddenly his point finally surfaced. “Did you see the price of that hardware?” he blurted out.

Click here to read the rest from Horton Brasses

How I Install a Half-Mortise Lock

Dave — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:29:57 +0000

Read my guest post on “How I Install a Half-Mortise Lock” on Horton Brasses Blog.

Back to Woodworking!

Dave — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:16:34 +0000

As many of you know I had tennis elbow & nerve surgery & it has kept me out of the woodworking game for the past couple of months.

Now that I’m brace free & doing physical therapy I’m slowly inching my way back in.

Prior to my surgery I was working like a mad man to get as far as I could on the federal card table project I was working on.

The man reason of this was I knew once I was out of the brace I had to go six weeks with out lifting or moving more than 5 lbs with my right arm. After that I had another 6 weeks at no more than 10 lbs. From there who knows.

Any way, I pretty much got everything routed into the table top before I went under the knife. By getting this far it would allow me to start working on the stringing & veneering once I was up for getting back into the shop.

So this week I started by cutting out 1/8” x 1/8″ strips of tiger maple for stringing so I could fit & glue them in. (I used the exact same methods to make this as I did the 1/16” stringing I covered in an earlier post.)

After that I had to size, cut & glue in a piece of burl for the semicircle.

That left cutting the veneer for the edge banding.

Cutting it for the back straight piece is straight forward but to go around the circular part of the table will take a bit more. The first step is to cut some strips of veneer into 4” wide strips.

Next I had to make a jig. To build this I took a piece of plywood & cut it to be 4 1/2” x 20” in size. From there I drilled a 1/8” diameter hole centered but up an inch from one end. (This becomes my pivot point for the jig.)

From there I set up my band saw circle cutting jig for 18” from the blade. With the plywood in place I cut it to final length I laid a strip of my veneer on top of the plywood but overhanging about an inch.

Then using a scrap piece of plywood to sandwich the veneer in between, I proceeded to swing the jig through the blade. After each pass I set just pulled the veneer to overhang an inch and cut again. (This method was super simple & was first shown to me by Glen Huey years ago.)

After I had several pieces cut I headed over to my table to look at the layout. My next step will be to trip each piece to mate up to each other & then glue them up.

Then I’ll add some 1/16″ maple stringing to the outside edge.

But that’s another post since I need some aspirin due to my arm being in pain. It’s a slow healing process but I’m glade to be back in the shop!

Got Me Some Shop Time

Dave — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 02:48:37 +0000

Saturday I got to spend some time in the shop so I took advantage of it by installing the legs on the federal card table I’m building.

I made bridal joints for the front two legs in addition to mortise & tenon joints for the back to. (Back legs are attached to swing arms.) Then I assembled the pieces together.

Here are a few random photos from the install.

Marking Out Mortise Location

Installing Spacer & Brace For Swing Arms

Gluing Mortise & Tenons

Cutting Pins for Swing Arms

Test Fit Prior To Assembly

Next I’m going to have to mill the lumber for tops…

Pateraes Update

Dave — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:05:17 +0000

Well after 24 hours I unclamped them, gave them a light sanding & wiped them down with mineral spirits.

Sorry the photo stink but it shows off the idea. (BTW The pateraes aren’t that dark!)

Installing Pateraes

Dave — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:06:52 +0000

Today I got another chance to get into the garage for a bit so I could work on the inlay table. (That seems I’ll never finish!)

Lucky for me today’s task was short & sweet so there was no excuses for not completing the install of the pateraes into the 2 front legs.

Now the pateraes I’m cheating on. They’re store bought so all I had to do was pop them out.

From there I centered them on my leg & using a small spacer block (to protect the paterae I clamped them to my leg.

From here I used my xacto knife to cut a groove around the paterae. Then after I removed the clamp & cut the line deeper into the leg.

Next I set the depth of my small router plan (I love this tool BTW!) to a bit stronger than the paterae thickness & started plowing out the material.

Using some sandpaper & a small chisel I test fit the piece into the hole. Making sure to keep a nice tight fit.

Then using liquid hide glue, I glue the pateraes in & set a pressure block (with tape on it to make sure the glue doesn’t stick) on top of them & clamp for 24 hours.

Tomorrow when I get home from work I’ll sand everything down & start marking the parts for installation.

Hopefully I also get to spend a bit more time both in the shop & on this project…

Fast, Cheap & Easy

Dave — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:07:45 +0000

When I’m woodworking & working with a design (or modifying an existing one) it seems the project always comes up with “opportunities” (I call them problems) to work out. Sometimes they are very simple and sometimes they require a lot of thought.

With that, I’m a visual person; especially when it comes to working out problems. And it’s not only in woodworking, I’m like that at work too.

Last year my boss & coworker started to chuckle when they saw me hang up a 3’ x 4’ whiteboard in my cube. Asking questions like “whats that for?” & “who paid for that?” They figured it was just a toy and after a week the $70 work spent on it would be for not.

But several months and several of their worked out “opportunities” later they figured it was time both of them get one for their cubes as well.

Well at home this had me wanting (I call it “needing”) to put a couple of whiteboards in my garage/shop but I wasn’t willing to spend $140 for them! (I mean come on, that’s going to cut into my music, DVD & book fund.)

So while surfing the web at lunch one day I was looking at whiteboard paint and reading the horror stories of it and having to apply it and whatnot so I clicked on. Then just a few clicks later I came across what I considered gold.

It was a Mythbusters shop tour where they asked Jamie (the owner of M5 Industries, where MB is shot) about all the whiteboards everywhere. He went on to explain that he and alot of other companies make their own whiteboards from the same materials as glossy melamine shower/tub boards.

With that I grabbed a whiteout pen and went to Lowes to test this out. Once I found the boards (located in the paneling section of the store) I did a small test on the corner of one and it worked perfect.

After smiling at the fact that it worked (and looking over my shoulder to see if a worker noticed my “test”) I went and grabbed a plywood cart loaded 2 of the 4’x 8’ sheets, had them cut in half & picked up some construction adhesive. $30.52 later I had 4 whiteboards & the means to hang them.

So far I’ve hung 2 of them up in the garage. Where the other two will go is still a guess at this point. (Maybe I’ll mount them to some fiberboard to make them study & portable.) But the next time I can’t figure out my “opportunity” I won’t be able to say that I can’t visualize it!

(Forgive me for the photos. It’s a 3g iPhone.)